Monday, December 30, 2013

On behalf of NRDC, last week we filed a Petition for Review
in the D.C. Circuit challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC)
recent decision concerning Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives (SAMAs) at
the Limerick nuclear power plant outside Philadelphia.Although NRC is preparing a NEPA Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) as part of the relicensing process for
the power plant, and recognizes that SAMAs – which can reduce the severity of
serious nuclear accidents – must be considered as part of that NEPA process,
the agency recently ruled that NRDC may not challenge the adequacy of the SAMA
analysis because the agency’s regulations foreclose such a challenge.The Petition seeks to overturn that ruling
in order to force NRC to conduct a legally sufficient SAMA analysis during
relicensing.